


Original Generation

by eaglgenes101



Category: Super Smash Brothers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-23
Updated: 2016-10-23
Packaged: 2018-08-20 09:10:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8243968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eaglgenes101/pseuds/eaglgenes101
Summary: Rebecca was no ordinary mii. In fact, she was one of the best Melee fighters around. But even she couldn't have anticipated her status as an official smasher.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ZippyZapmeister](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZippyZapmeister/gifts).



> This fic's structure is based on GintaxAlvissforever's 25 Ficlets of Single Characters. Go give her stuff a read if you haven't already. It's good, even if it's a bit steeped in her general lore. 
> 
> And why is this for ZippyZapmeister, you ask? Well, I suggested something about Mii Gunner to ZippyZapmeister, and the response was "she has no personality at all". Challenge accepted, good unknown gender person.
> 
> And before you ask, yes, this is in the The Smashterns continuity, and soon enough I'll be returning to The Smashterns. 
> 
> *Sees crack in 4th wall*
> 
> So that's where the Kid Icarus folk are coming from. I like them here, so I might build a door there.

**Brawl**

Rebecca was a Mii. Miis were a race of humanoids that had a distinctive appearance: their limbs looked like cylinders, their large heads had flat facial features, almost like they were painted on, and they could appear as any combination of known Mii features. They had their start with sports, but soon spread all over Nintendo's properties to join several others in different activities. Master Hand was wary of the new egg-headed folk and how they would act with the other smashers, so he didn't invite any miis to be official smashers in the Brawl days. Nevertheless, Rebecca, and other Miis, obtained copies of the Brawl system on release day. 

Rebecca was able to convince her immediate circle of friends to join her in Brawl matches, which then largely devolved into chaotic flailfests where they would whack each other as hard as possible and pray that they would knock out other people with those hits. It was hilarious fun, but most of the time, Rebecca, with less strength than her friends, would end up in last place, leaving her to wait two rounds before she could join back in. A google search later, and Rebecca found Smashboards. 

**Lame**

On Smashboards, Rebecca observed the first rule of forums: lurk moar. Smashboards was a bountiful resource of information about Smash. She found out that there were two previous Smash games, that there existed official smashers, and that Master Hand was the ultimate mastermind and head of Smash. More importantly, though, she found out about the competitive scene, and of strategies that people were using. Of particular interest to her was zoning: staying out of the fray and utilizing projectiles to impede the approaches of other players. 

Shortly before the next of Rebecca's Friday Brawls, she bought a pack of rubber bands and placed them on her wrist. This won her the game, as her friends were too busy whacking the others to bother to take down her stocks. This earned her complaints that she was not fighting, so she relented, and started flailing her fists again the next round. But Rebecca still wanted to fire rubber bands at opponents, so she went asking around, and sure enough, she found that the Brawl mii competitive scene. From there, she quickly signed up for a local, unaware of just how deep competitive smash could possibly get. 

**Competitive**

Her first game had her against a swordsman who was able to string several hits against her. She tried to hit him into the blast zone, but somehow he was able to survive what she thought was a lethal hit and come back to force her offstage without a recovery. Predictably, once again her ass became grass. Loser's bracket was no different, with her opponent covering most of the ground with oil and leaving her to slide around as tossed grenades drove up her percentage faster than she could deal damage with her rubber bands. With her pride hurt, Rebecca looked inward, found her determination, and started pushing her game to the limits. 

First, she filled up the holes in her play. She traded her rubber bands for a semi-automatic pistol, and learned to aim and fire it. Her uncoordinated flails became precise, systematic strikes, and a trip to the sports shop got her arm guards and a grappling hook for blocking and recovering, respectively. Then she learned some cancels. The poor sandbag took several hits as she learned to cancel dash attacks into up smashes, and her friends complained to her again when she began consistently cancelling momentum and hitstun in their friendly matches. After two separate instances of failing to get out of pools at tournaments, a helpful poster directed Rebecca to spacing, positioning, mindgames, and mix-ups. Hitting sandbags by their seams and friends by their shoulders with her knuckles became second nature, and Rebecca congratulated herself when she was able to jump off the ledge, twirl herself around, and send her opponent into the depths offstage to claim a win and reset a locals Grand Finals bracket.

Meta Knight quickly became the dominant force of Brawl, and gradually, tournament players followed his lead, trading whatever weapons they had for super-light swords. Rebecca held out and tried to learn how to deal with them instead, but eventually she relented, and obtained a sabre to use alongside her now-customized pistol. This combination captured her the win at a 2011 Mii regional tournament. 

**Project Meme**

Starting 2012, rumors of a competitive in-development mod of the Brawl system circulated among Miis. And apparently, Nintendo didn't like it, as they were banning folks who mentioned the initials PM, even if they were referring to private messages or Paper Mario. This forbidden fruit piqued many a mii's interest, including Rebecca's. 

Rebecca followed the steps to install Project M on her Brawl system. First, she loaded a specially designed stage file onto an SD card. Then, she popped in the SD card, opened Brawl, loaded up the "stage", waited a bit, and voila! There was Project M, right in front of her eyes. She stepped in, and...

"Okay, coolYAAARGH!!"

That was some strong gravity Project M had, and her straight legs took the brunt of the impact in a very brief fraction of a second. After getting used to the normal-earth feel of Project M's game engine, she started practicing various maneuvers. Dash dancing was much more useful here, and the ever famous wavedash and waveland were new to her. She already had short hop fast fall aerials, short hop autocancel aerials, and short hop shots in muscle memory, but the higher gravity forced her to relearn these instinctive movements, and add L-cancelling on top of it all. After practicing for two weeks, burning through all ten of her paid leave days, sleeping four hours a day, and maintaining a near-constant caffeine high, she decided she was proficient enough in Project M to participate in tournaments. She rewarded herself with a 24-hour snooze that caused her to unintentionally miss a work Monday. 

Since no Mii wanted to suffer the wrath of Nintendo by hosting a Project M tournament, Rebecca had to travel out-of-region to get placings. She first showed up for a random Tristate local in New Brunswick, using her natural gift for changing her appearance to disguise herself as "FalcoMaster2000". She never spoke, and won 2nd place and 15 dollars after semi-spiking an unsuspecting opponent into the blastline. It was a matter of time before FalcoMaster2000 appeared at other locals and claimed their placings. Each trip was a net monetary loss for Rebecca, but for her, money was not the reason she went out. 

**My Body is Ready**

EVO 2013 was the moment she decided that it was safe for her to take off her disguises and fight as herself. Nintendo, the same company that tried to suppress Project M, also tried to suppress Melee. But the strong Melee community made lots of noise and demanded that Nintendo let the game be shown to the world, and it relented. At that point, FalcoMaster2000 stopped popping up in random Project M locals, and Rebecca started showing up in Melee mii locals. Her customized pistol went on Ebay via an account expressly for the purpose, and the half a grand it was worth went straight to an arm cannon. The practice she spent on Project M, for the large part, carried over to Melee. 

In her room, a FalcoMaster2000 outfit was pinned to the wall, next to a large Miiverse Power Rankings poster showing her at first and posing with her arm cannon, and alongside a calendar marked June 9, 2014. It was actually June 10, but she hadn't bothered to mark off the date yet. She had worn yet another hole in the soles of her shoes, and holding them in her hands, she lamented that she had to replace her shoes this soon. Then the door knocked. 

Rebecca dash-danced straight to the front door, and opened it quickly, taking care not to slam it against the wall again. Daniel became friends with Rebecca early on, frequently joining Rebecca in her training. Like Rebecca, he had experience with Project M competitive play, and the carryover yielded him seventh in the power rankings. 

"How's life?"

"Yesterday, I woke up late and missed 3 hours of work, so my boss had me stay overtime to help tech support. I can't be mad; it was about time that smashing 'til dawn caught up to me."

"Speaking of, Nintendo's E3 presentation is today. Who will be confirmed for Smash today? You or me? Or Abraham Lincoln?"

Though she didn't find the joke that funny, Rebecca joined her friend's laughing. 

"Good one. But who knows? It wasn't that long ago we thought they were bound to reveal Daisy, or Ridley, or Krystal."

Rebecca pulled out two breakfast calzones from a freezer, and put them back to back on a plate before microwaving them for a good 4 minutes, then fetched the TV remote control from a cardboard container she fashioned herself, and flipped the channel until E3 appeared on the screen. There Reggie Fils-Aime and Satoru Iwata were fighting. After several matches (and stages), Satoru Iwata finally tired out and left the match. He held up an Amiibo, placed it down, and Mario popped up, beating Reggie at his own brawling game.

After this trailer, Sakurai announced that they would be choosing a handful of Miis to join the ranks of the official smashers. But 9:00 was ticking, so they had to leave for work. Rebecca shook Daniel's hand, briefly discussed the now not-so-remote possibility they might be picked, and sprinted for the bus. 

**Invitation**

Three days later, Rebecca pulled out stack of mail. After paying off her combined cable bill and two different credit cards, she grasped a small letter, stamped with the Smash logo. Her breath deepened to a level she had only experienced before in Melee matches, and she steeled herself for disappointment. Carefully, she pulled the letter out, read it, and her breath let out involuntarily, fluttering the top of the letter. She was in!

Rebecca quickly took to the phone for the news. First, she told Daniel. 

"Daniel. Guess what came through the mail yesterday."

"Just tell me."

"I'm an official Smasher now!"

"What?"

"I'm! An! Official! Smasher! Now!"

"Tell me time didn't randomly go back 2 months and it's now April Fools."

"No, I'm serious! I can show you!"

Rebecca posted an image of the top half of her invitation on Miiverse, quickly collecting views, and comments, and "yeah!"s. Daniel called her back, asking her what would happen to her things after she was gone. Rebecca told her that he would inherit the responsibility, and made a subsequent Miiverse post to that effect. 

That evening, her workplace got a call. A higher-up picked up, and was immediately told by Rebecca that she was going to be resigning effective next month. He then called the HR department so they could figure out how to keep everything running smoothly despite the missing worker. The person on the other person muttered, "About time she would break off. Her attendance has become patchier by the week." 

**Connections**

Rebecca wasn't the only mii that was invited, that was for sure. The day after, Graham had a PM sent to her account. He was the number one mii for the Brawl system, using a super-lightweight sword to claim his wins. He suggested that they band together and encourage all the miis to check their mail, and see if any more of them got invitations. Rebecca went along with his plan. 

This effort yielded one more invitation: Jared, two days later. He was virtually unknown in Melee and Brawl competitions, but a couple of questions established that he was number one of Project M's underground mii scene, utilizing his rapid feet and a jump-cancellable reflector to manage long, highly technical combos. Rebecca looked at the PGP header of the e-mail, then at Jared's words, then into empty space. Dammit, she could've been there instead if she had stuck with Project M instead of moving to Melee after EVO 2013. It was way too late to change anything, but her reminiscing happened involuntarily. 

After holding out for another month before concluding there were no more smash invitations sent out to the Miis, Rebecca, Graham, and Jared exchanged e-mails to determine when they would meet in person. Rebecca and Graham decided on August 23, but Jared was busy on that day. He suggested August 24 instead, and Rebecca saw it was all clear for her, but another e-mail found that Graham had that day occupied. Jared and Graham could agree on August 25, but Rebecca had a full day's worth of work on that day, so that was a non-starter. As they advanced the proposition of days, these schedule conflicts continued to be discovered until they eventually found that Labor Day, September 1, was clear for all of them. 

Labor Day itself proceeded as planned. Rebecca appeared outside as a lightly tanned readhead rather than her default, and ordered a cardboard takeout plate of teriyaki salmon to eat for lunch. After verifying with the other two that they were all at the Mii plaza, Rebecca sat at a fountain, placed her orange handbag down, and sat down, occupying the corner of the fountain. A long-haired boy soon found her and greeted her by name, and soon after that, a Marine recruit found them and greeted them both by name. 

**Introduction**

It was a week later when they would move in, a mere 4 days before their first matches. In the meantime, they got to know each other better, exchanged information, and did random wacky stuff like play Smash 64 together. It was Jared's idea to create a team pose, and so they did. For their team pose, Rebecca had her arm cannon at her ready, Jared held his arms out for striking, and Graham held his blade diagonally in a defensive position. 

Unlike for some of the other smashers, Smashville was a mere airplane trip away for the miis, so Master Hand mailed them airplane tickets rather than the modestly expensive (for a corporation) portal passes. The tickets were business class, which was higher class than any of the three had experienced before. Rebecca leaned her seat back, then put it back on after the chair lean felt weird. An announcement voice told her to turn off her devices and watch a video explaining the safety features almost every plane had. At least after takeoff, she would have complimentary wifi and unlimited snacks. Jared and Graham, meanwhile, were playing Gomoku on a pad of paper, with Jared winning every game despite Graham's efforts. 

In the atrium of the Smash mansion, the three miis set down their bags, then Jared had the idea here to try out their team pose, to see if they still remembered it. They did. While they were posed, Zelda saw them in this. 

"Good to see you three to be enthusiastic about Smash, but your matches aren't happening until next week. I'll help you get settled down in the meantime."

Well. That was their first impression, and Rebecca, Graham, and Jared had a non-verbal conversation consisting of various gazes and stares as they tried to determine what was to come of this. Zelda was there to help them find their rooms, and gave them a moment to unpack their bags and get comfortable, telling Peach that the miis needed some time before they could be further introduced to the Smash "family" by. She knew that more than a few newcomers had been sickened by Peach's saccharine assistance, and turned off help until months, or for one particularly dark knight, years. 

Peach had an introduction circle that day, as all the Smash 4 newcomers were there, the miis the last to arrive. Near the halfway point of the introduction circle, the introduction circle reached each of them in turn. 

"I'm Rebecca. Never thought I would be living with you all in the mansion, but here I am. Before I was invited, I was the number one Mii in Melee. If you want, I can show you what Melee looks like."

"I'm Graham. I'm also pleasantly surprised to be in Smash. You might or might not know me as the number one Mii in Brawl, but now you know. I'm open for practice matches if anyone wants them."

"And I'm Jared. Number one in The Brawl Mod Which Must Not Be Named, and frankly, I didn't know anyone in Smash cared about us. But thanks to whoever decided to take a peek there and invite one of us here."

Zelda replied, "That would be Sakurai."

And then the introduction circle continued. Eight different villagers introduced themselves by passing around pamphlets, Morton kept speaking after his time was up, Ludwig was quickly interrupted by Iggy after introducing himself as the leader of the Koopalings, and Red was initially missing from the circle, prompting Captain Falcon to frantically run to his room to call him down. After the circle, Marth called out, "Gunner!"

Thinking he was referring to some smasher named Gunnar, Rebecca ignored the calls. But Marth got more insistent, and finally chased Rebecca down to tell her that he would take her up on her challenge. 

"Fair enough. I, Rebecca, will challenge you, Marth, to a friendly match. Let's get to a simulator. "

**Identity**

This was one of the first times Rebecca was called by a nickname rather than her real name, but it wouldn't be her last. The next week had her called "Mii Gunner", "Gunner", "Mii Girl", and an assortment of other monikers, but never "Rebecca". For the next month and a half, she would continually correct people implicitly or explicitly, but eventually gave up, recognizing her descriptors. Graham and Jared habituated to their new names too. 

As the three Mii smashers, Rebecca, Jared, Graham, and Rebecca found themselves representing the Miis at large, and being assumed to have traits considered typical of Miis. One time, a tipsy Captain Falcon talked about them as "not real smashers", and nobody interrupted his trash-talk until Jared, holding his invitation letter, asked Captain Falcon what he was holding in front of his face. Assuming the center of attention automatically was a nice perk sometimes, but Rebecca didn't like being put on the spot when she wanted to just have personal conversations with one or two others. Salty smashers would sometimes speak of them as having deceiving motions or appearances or of being dishonest in combat, as if these were not characteristic of good, competitive fighters. Every statement that came out of their mouths was treated with at least slight suspicion, even if other smashers in the same context would be merely trusted, and even for the most trivial things like getting pencils and paper. Their ability to change their appearance to whatever they wanted was often played up by other smashers, in jokes, in the dress-ups that Peach wanted them to join, and in the incognito errands that Samus, Lucina, and the Villagers sent them on. These annoyances lessened as time went on, and some smashers dispensed of their preconceptions entirely as they got to know them better, but the problem as a whole had surprising persistence. 

And on top of those problems were the ones that most smashers faced. Hate mail from people who assumed that one of their favorites would be in Smash if it wasn't for them. Getting with the routine of checking into various activities, and getting scolded by Crazy Hand for inevitably forgetting to do so until it's as reflexive as blinking. Deciding what one's own public image would be, and doing activities to build such an image. Living up to said image twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week and having to disguise oneself should one want to escape the public view. Trying to take in all the Smash customs and traditions all at once. Facing the choice between staying true to oneself and sacrificing one's unique technique to become better. And for Rebecca and the other Smash girls, getting hit on by Captain Falcon. 

Jared was giddy about being accepted into Smash for the first two weeks, but soon afterwards, found himself falling behind and possibly not competitive. So he hit the lab. He tried to figure out a way to jump-cancel his reflector, then dispensed of it after finding he couldn't no matter what he did. He refined his combos, and figured out a setup that could KO other fighters at 60% at the edge. Graham quickly found the removal of hitstun cancelling, and found his blade was much slower, but at least it wasn't missing hitboxes like Meta Knight's sword. Rebecca practiced making walls and traps with her projectiles, and tried to figure out why her smash attack weren't always connecting properly. This was the first part of being fully accepted into Smash: proving themselves worthy of fighting alongside the others.

**Streetpass**

Rebecca had to admit: changing her appearance to match other famous figures was surprisingly fun. Sure, part of it was the challenge of conceptualizing a suitable means of achieving an appearance with limited resources, and being surprisinglly close. Part of it was where others would try to guess, and often fail in hilarious ways. And part of it was simply being together with a conversation starter on hand. Whatever it was, Rebecca would often show up in costume at Peach's gatherings. She was at some point Lara Croft, Shantae, Banjo (with a stuffed Kazooie on her shoulder), the TF2 announcer, Chell, Melee Sheik, Rapunzel, Celeste Luvendass, Big Bird, rule 63 Isaac from both Golden Sun and The Binding of Isaac, and Santa's elf. 

On December 5, 2014, Rebecca was bored out of her mind, still stuck about what to become next. And time was short, with only a few hours left to go before Peach and her crew would see her again. So she browsed Miiverse. And Tumblr. And Smashboards. And from the former two she found an elf-like Mii, small and with his mouth near his eyes. He was Lonk, and he was from Pennsylvania. Rebecca inexplicably found this funny, and called Jared and Graham into her room to see. They both emerged with snickers. And it was decided what they were dressing up as this time around. 

After some more searching for funny-looking miis, "Lonk", "Petch", and "Zorldo" were all neatened out and prepared. Having their mouth that high up was weird feeling, but by the standards of Mii flexibility, this was as hard as holding a Vulcan salute. They all knew where their identities came from: Graham's was from Pennsylvania, Jared's was from Texas, and Rebecca's was from New York. 

Upon seeing them drink powdered green tea, Samus asked, "What in the world are you supposed to be?"

"I'm Lonk from Pennsylvania."

"I'm Petch from Texas."

"I'm Zorldo from New York."

"This makes less sense than that time you decided to become a victim of some SCP."

Rebecca's idea didn't turn out so well after all, the three decided after looking at each other and realizing how derpy they looked. Not everyone had their sense of humor, and not everyone was tuned in on the latest memes. Ah well, they were already costumed up, they may as well salvage something from this by explaining what they were. 

**Helicopter Kick**

It was always tempting to say "git gud" at the first sign of scrubbery. And for the most part, it was difficult to argue against. However, it would inflame conflicts rather than resolving them, and neither person would get anything from it. 

The three mii fighters had experienced their fair share of scrubs during their competitive years. And for the most part, the ranks of scrubs thinned out as they made it up the ranks. Scrubs were more focused on changing the game to help them than they were on changing themselves to help themselves win, so naturally they tended to not improve as much as people with the correct competitive mindset. Since the Smashers were renowned fighters, Rebecca assumed that they would be good, and not scrubs. She was wrong. 

In fact, some of them Johned regularly. Pit would occasionally pin the blame on Lady Palutena for not helping him. Lady Palutena, in turn, would occasionally curse Master Hand for weakening her in the Smash system in the name of balance. Wario and Bowser Jr accused each other of sabotaging each other. Dark Pit would lament the poor fighting skills he inherited from Pit. Meta knight sometimes assumed he could not be outread, and when he was outpunished, assumed he was outbuttoned by chance hitboxes. Marth would frequently bring up the range of other fighter's moves, ignoring that he had neglected his own training and couldn't combo as well as before. 

But of course, most complaints centered around moves and attributes that were perceived as "unfair". Sometimes, this was warranted, when Diddy turned out to have a very strong kill combo out of one of his throws and was using it at every opportunity to knock out other fighters. Other times, it wasn't, when Bowser's fast run speed, a frequent source of complaints, turned out to not be enough to make him viable, and Master Hand went around and turned one of his throws into a combo throw. And then there were cases in the middle, such as Sheik's downthrow into up air mix-up, finally removed after Master Hand knocked some other fighters down a peg. 

Mii Brawler had a few of these moves. With the correct setup, he could knock fighters out at early percents, and had the mindgames necessary to maneuver others into such situations while being able to perform death combos at the right time. The first move, piston punch, could manage one-hit knockouts under the influence of Rage if spaced so only the first hit connected, achievable out of down throw at early percents. Master Hand quickly patched this out after Rosalina brought it up. The second was Helicopter Kick, and was much more involved for the miis. 

Out of down throw at a narrow band of percentages, Jared could chain a down throw into two kicks, and then helicopter kick. Jared labbed combos regularly, and knew exactly when the combo worked, and when it didn't. Therefore, when Jared attempted it, it almost always worked, and at percents when it wouldn't work, Jared didn't even go for it. It was also effective for damage-racking, but on fighters that would fall for early KOs, he avoided using it until it worked to avoid staling the move. This gave the mistaken impression that it was a reliable, easy way to kill, when in fact, Jared had to watch damage very carefully and manage several reads to position fighters for the combo. So in came the complaints. 

Jared, sensing an impending nerf, quickly went to the complainers and tried to demonstrate that he was in fact balanced. First, he pointed to his win-loss record, which had barely more losses than wins. Then he allowed them to challenge him repeatedly, and learn how he played. When those two didn't work, he then accompanied them to the simulators and helped them lab, using himself as a punching bag in a few cases. When that didn't work, he then released all his labbing, showing just how specific the conditions had to be for it to work. And when that somehow didn't work, he went to each one individually, taught them how to DI the combo and got them familiar with the conditions under which the combo was guaranteed to work. An exasperated Brawler would frequently come down to Rebecca's room and vent about how Luigi and Falco kept missing what he perceived as completely obvious. 

After trying their best to calm the furor over the helicopter kick, he went back to his accusers and helped them figure out counterplay to other infamous moves such as Donkey Kong's seemingly neutral-shorting Kong Cyclone and the Villager's tripping counter sapling. Jared continued to vent some more to his buddies, but still felt the duty to encourage a good competitive mindset through the Smash Mansion. 

**Closing the Circle**

May 2016. Graham, after months of trying to get Master Hand to give him buffs, finally resigned to his low tier position. Bayonetta was just nerfed, and was madly trying to find new combos with her remaining toolset. Sheik had gotten over the loss of her fifty-fifty, and now had more kill setups in her arsenal such as a new fifty-fifty from her tilts and needles to bouncing fish. Rebecca was working her way past Jared on the unnoficial tier lists, and all three of the miis were for the most part full insiders of Smash. They would talk about how they were once mere competitors in outside tournaments, but they were asking Shulk to repair their equipment, talking to Palutena about the other gods, cuddling Lumas, and gobbling pieces of octopus tentacles without a second thought. 

That is, until Peach picked up wind of a giant number of employees coming into Smash. She decided that the most outsidery of the smashers, the miis, should hear of it first. 

"Rebecca!"

"Who?"

"You, of course."

"Right, right. I got used to being called 'Mii gunner'. So thanks for calling me my name."

And being called Rebecca dug up the outsider mindset from years ago where Rebecca was a Mii first, a competitor second, and a Smasher third. So when Peach revealed the news to her, it wasn't as shocking as it was exciting to Rebecca. And facing form her, Peach saw for the first time in a few years that someone was more overjoyed than she was. 

She shouted, "Jared! Graham! I have something great to tell you both!" 

They both came down to hear what Rebecca had to say. She told them, and they understood why she called them down in that fashion. 


End file.
